Elegant fonts usually have extremely high contrast and crisp delicate shapes, but Stornoway’s version of elegance is a little more sturdy than that—it won’t fall apart from being too delicate. Inspired by the charm of Scotch Roman faces and Dwiggins’ Caledonia, Stornoway brings the style a bit further into the modern era with a higher x-height, flared terminals, and no serifs. The name “Stornoway” comes from an Island town in the Outer Hebrides in Northern Scotland, a town where my ancestors come from.
The high contrast styles are great for display work and can effortlessly express Art Deco, the ideals of modern architecture and interior design, or graceful menus and signage. The low contrast styles are based closely on the same structure but with enough mass to perform very nicely in body text situations. The heavier weights in the low contrast style offer a unique chunky character that would be right at home on food and drink packaging. True italics provide sparkling, expressive styles that provide more ways to include the concept of sturdy elegance into your projects.